


Full Circle

by clare009



Series: Aftermath [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, The Angels Take Manhattan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-03
Updated: 2012-10-03
Packaged: 2017-11-15 13:37:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/527889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clare009/pseuds/clare009
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River deals with her loss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Full Circle

**Author's Note:**

> Another coda to The Angels Take Manhattan (spoilers). Could be read in relation to 'Always' or as a standalone. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own or make money off Who. I don't work for the BBC, either.

River leaned over the TARDIS console. Each time she drew in a breath, her chest would shudder with the effort and she couldn't draw in enough air to fill her lungs. Her fingers gripping at the edges of the console were bone white. She could never see them again.  
  
In one cataclysmic moment, both her parents had been lost to her--and she hadn't even seen it coming. But she should have.  
  
It didn't matter that they had lived a long and happy life in a past, because that was now forbidden to her. She couldn't go back to them because the laws of time would not allow it. She'd ripped apart the universe once before--there'd be no second time.  
  
The TARDIS door banged open and the Doctor strode in. He tucked a slip of paper in his jacket pocket and looked up at her with a smile. "Anywhere? Anytime?"  
  
River quickly shuttered her emotions and stood up straight. She wanted to know what was written in Amelia's afterword, but he seemed to have already locked that part of his life away and was ready to move on. "Of course, my love."  
  
The Doctor twirled up the stairs and began to work the console, flinging switches and flipping levers as he went. "There's a million, million things to explore. Moons made entirely out of crystal, whole worlds so beautiful, yet unseen by sentient beings. We can watch history in the making, we can witness the beginnings or the endings of civilizations. Or--" he turned and flashed a wink at her-- "I can take you to one of the scores of pleasure planets in existence, where your every desire can be fulfilled."  
  
River tried to smirk back, but her heart wasn't in it. She had to be strong for him, though, because this was his way of coping. He'd lost so much, so much, over time, that the only way he could deal with it was to move forward. To never look back. But everything hurt. How could she plaster a smile on her face and carry on when everything now would remind her of Amy and Rory?  
  
"Come on, River. Where shall it be? The TARDIS is ready, the universe is waiting for us." He stepped up close to her and lifted her chin with two of his fingers. If she wasn't careful, he'd see right through her mask.  
  
"Why... why don't we let her decide, hmm? She always takes us where we need to go."  
  
His eyes held her for a moment, and in their depths she saw it all--all the pent up pain and anger. Oh, how he hated himself. He tapped her on the nose and spun away. The Doctor returned to the controls, his fingers flying. "Brilliant. Good. We'll set it at random. Surprise us this time." The whole bridge shuddered and shook as they took off into the vortex. River clutched the console once more to keep herself steady, and the Doctor whooped as he was flung back, a manic gleam in his eyes. "Time is in tatters," he yelled out over the noise of the rattling, groaning ship, "It'll repair, eventually, but it makes for a bumpy ride."  
  
And then came the familiar wheezing as the TARDIS came to rest. River looked up to see him grinning at her. She couldn't even chastise him for leaving the brakes on.  
  
He ran down the steps like a child at Christmas and flung wide the TARDIS doors. Then he froze. River took the steps slowly, her eyes never leaving his back.  
  
"No," he said. "No. No. No." He turned and brushed past her, almost knocking her to the ground.  
  
She stepped to the doors to look outside. Oh. They were in the living room of her parents house. The house the Doctor had given to them. River slumped against the doorframe and felt the prickle of tears in her eyes. She dashed them away angrily. Not now. She couldn't break down now. Later, when she was alone. She needed to be strong for him. But was this really what he needed right now? The TARDIS seemed to think so.  
  
River walked up behind him and put her hand on his shoulder. He flinched. "Why?" he said. "Why here?"  
  
"I don't know." She reached for his hand and tugged at it. "Come."  
  
When he turned, the look on his face was as raw and broken as she felt. His fingers twined with hers and they stepped out the TARDIS together.  
  
The Doctor glanced around the living room, at the mostly drunk mugs of tea cooling on the coffee table, the still warm indentations on the couch. The telly was on, half way through one of the shows Amy liked to watch. "Nothing's changed," he said, "It's exactly the same as it was when I picked them up."  
  
"Everything's changed." River went to the mantle and brushed a hand over a photo of the three of them: Amy, Rory and the Doctor. Her parents were looking at each other while the Doctor grinned goofily at the camera. She remembered taking the photo--many, many years ago.  
  
She felt a cool hand on her back. "I'm sorry," he said in a rough whisper.  
  
"So am I." She couldn't stop the tears from slipping silently down her cheeks, now.  
  
The Doctor turned her around and traced the wet tracks on her face with finger. "River. How do you manage it? How can you always forgive me, no matter what I do to you?"  
  
Cupping his face in her hand, she said, "Because you need me to." She leaned up and kissed his cheek.  
  
The Doctor drew in a shaking breath and turned his head to capture her lips instead. River sighed into his mouth as a painful, desperate need bloomed inside her. Her hands went to the lapels of his jacket and she pulled him closer.  
  
She kissed him hard and furiously, needing to make some sort of connection with him as a balm to her wounds. She wasn't even surprised that he returned her kiss with just as much desperation. He sought something, too. Perhaps he could find it in her.  
  
River was the first to break away. She panted raggedly as she searched his eyes. Finally, she swallowed and said, "Let's go upstairs."  
  
"We shouldn't. It's not... decent."  
  
"When we affirm life, we acknowledge death. There is not one without the other."  
  
She lead him up the stairs to the room that had sometimes been his. She supposed it was hers, now. The whole house was.  
  
At the side of the bed, River kissed him slowly and expertly this time. She watched as his eyes fluttered shut, and she felt the rumble of pleasure in this chest. Finally his hands moved up to the zip of her dress. He undid her with ease and the corset dress slumped to the floor around her legs.  
  
She removed his jacket and worked at the knot of his bowtie with reverence, while his hands explored the curves of her body. When she'd slipped his tie free, she wrapped one end around the palm of her hand. "Husband," she said.  
  
He brought her bound hand to his lips and kissed it, reminiscent of how he'd done so after he'd used his regeneration energy to heal her. "Wife," he said.  
  
The Doctor sat on the edge of the bed and undid his boots and pulled them off, followed by his trousers and shirt. River stepped out of her knickers, then pushed him backwards so that she could stretch out on top of him. They kissed until she grew desperate once more, and his hand sought out the warm place between her legs.  
  
"Yes," she gasped as his fingers slid inside her. She wanted this, needed this. Needed to know oblivion with him. He wound her close with his thumb and fingers; he always knew how to bring her to the edge with a few expert motions. Then he pulled his hand free and grasped at her hips.  
  
"Now, River," he said. "Please."  
  
She arched up and sank down on him with a sigh. The Doctor looked up at her with a mixture of heartache and love that pierced through her. As she moved above him, she felt the tears slipping down her cheeks once more.   
  
The Doctor held her steady and urged her on, his own breathing coming in ragged bursts. River felt the world slip away until it was only him inside her, and the glorious crush of ecstasy approaching. She gave in with a guttural cry, leting the waves of pleasure wash over her, knowing, too, that the Doctor followed her with his own choked sob.  
  
They lay in the bed for what seemed like hours, neither willing or wanting to move. River was content to listen to the beats of his hearts as she rested her head on his chest. His fingers played over her spine in lazy circles.   
  
Finally, he got up and dressed. He unwrapped his bowtie from her limp fingers at last and returned it to its customary place around his neck.  
  
"Where will you go next?" She asked him.  
  
"I don't know." He acknowledged the words she had not spoken--that she would not go with him this time--with a soft look. "But I'll know where to find you when I need to."  
  
River glanced around the room and felt her mouth twist into a small, genuine smile. "Yes."  
  
A knock on the front door echoed through the house and took them both by surprise. The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "I suppose I'd better answer it. You're hardly decent."  
  
She threw a pillow at him that he dodged as he left the room. Pulling herself from the bed with a sigh, River flipped through the cupboard to find something to wear and came upon a pair of yoga pants of her mum's, and t-shirt that had belonged to her dad. She brought the cotton up to her face and breathed in the last bit of her parents that she'd ever have.  
  
"River," she heard the Doctor yell as as she shrugged on the clothes. "There's someone here who needs to meet you."  
  
She came downstairs to see the Doctor talking softly to Rory's father. Brian Williams. She knew him, of course, from another life where she'd been Mels, Rory and Amy's madcap friend. He'd never known she was his granddaughter.  
  
Brian turned to her. "Are you River Song?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
With shaking hands he handed her a box. "Years ago, not long after my son's tenth birthday, an old couple came to me and gave me this. They told me to come to this address on this day and to give this to the woman who answered to River Song. Then they hugged me, told me they loved me, and said goodbye." He cocked his head to the side and looked at her. "I never understood until now. It was them, wasn't it. Amy and Rory. They're not coming back, are they?"

River's hand flew to her mouth. She nodded, not trusting herself to talk.  
  
Brian blew out a breath. "They were happy. And sad, too, but mostly happy I think. Why don't you open the box?"  
  
She turned to look at the Doctor, but he wasn't there. River spun to find the TARDIS, but it had vanished, too. "Now he takes the brakes off," she muttered. With a sigh she set the box down on the coffee table and pulled off the lid. Inside was a large bound book. She gently drew it out and opened it up. The inscription on the first page said 'Pond Family Album'. River let out a laugh.  
  
"What is it?" said Brian.  
  
"Their life," she said. "And mine." All the photographs Amy had taken from when they'd found her in New York right up until that last one where they'd said goodbye to her in Leadworth. They were all there between the pages. We love you, Melody, they'd said. We won't see you again, but you'll see us. You watch us run.


End file.
